It's the last day of July and I can't believe we've been here 7 weeks. Today was filled with some of the usual routine: endlessly filling the hummingbird feeders. We are using the natural stuff now (boiled water and sugar) instead of the commercial red due to mainly cost. Trust me - they don't care about the red color at all. We're buying 10lb bags of sugar at a time! The birds swarm all day but we know within a few weeks they will suddenly leave for warmer clims - South America the bird book says.
This is day 4 of happy no cows on our hill. They still remain at the edge of the back gate of our ranch development where cowboy Bill, as I've named him, herded them. We haven't had to plug in the temp electric fence around the house, but that is clearly temporary. Cowboy Bill will be back again to reek havoc. The cattle (75 head - isn't is amazing I have learned some cow terms!) will be here on the ranch until sometime in October. Our permanent fence will hopefully be started by our very knowledgeble fence expert Ben in the next few weeks. That of course will solve the cow issue permanently. In the meantime I'm ready to bring my newly discovered herding talents into play. I walk fast at them, clap my hands and yell. If only I could whistle - they would run away that much faster. Free range has a different meaning to me now...
My latest big adventure actually occured yesterday morning. BEAR! I guess it was inevitable. We had two visits (large piles of steaming poop) on our driveway, no sighting, but that was weeks ago. I was on my morning walk, this time alone (Mark was scheduled to play in a golf tournament), and when I entered the woods on the next hill over, suddenly I saw a bear 20 feet away. (it saw me before I saw it). I froze and it started the loping bear run, happily, away from me. Black bear - BIG. I decided to follow the bear advice and NOT RUN, but it was a pretty fast walking pace as I hurried to the other end of the woods. Today I took off. Hmmm, wonder where I'll walk tomorrow. Mark won't be with me, he's still playing in the tournament.
